Munro was silent for a moment. His every instinct told him that something was badly wrong. For one moment he considered resistance but the effect of years of military training was too strong. He said stiffly: ‘You leave me no alternative, sir. But under protest.’ He stepped back from the stand.
Carefully, almost reverently, Scobie lifted the pulsing globe from its stand. Followed by the two silent military policemen, he turned and strode from the laboratory.
The Doctor and Liz sat waiting in the semi-darkness. Liz’s head nodded forward, and she realised that, in spite of her strange surroundings, she was almost asleep.
The Doctor rose to his feet, yawned and stretched. ‘Come on, Liz. I think we’ve waited long enough. The place should be empty now.’
The silence was shattered by the banging open of a door in the distance. The sound of marching footsteps echoed along the empty corridors, coming towards their room.
‘Oh yes?’ whispered Liz. ‘What’s all that then?’
The footsteps were now almost at the door. Hurriedly the Doctor grabbed Liz’s hand and dragged her to the back of the room, where a long velvet curtain covered a recessed window. They both slipped behind the curtain.
Light spilled into the room from the corridor, as the door was thrown open. Liz peered out through a tiny gap. Channing stood framed in the doorway. Beside him was Hibbert. And behind them stood two more dim figures. Liz saw that their features were crude and lumpy and the eyes blank. They were Autons, like the thing that had attacked them at the cottage. She could feel the Doctor’s hand gripping her arm fiercely, warning her to keep absolutely still and silent.
Channing looked keenly round the room. It seemed as if his eyes could burn through the curtain to reveal their hiding-place.
Channing said suddenly: ‘I sense the presence of human life forms in this room.’
Liz edged away from the curtain. She could feel the Doctor tense beside her. She heard Hibbert reply: ‘There’s only us here, and the facsimiles. And Scobie.’
Channing said: ‘Yes, of course. Scobie.’
Then Hibbert’s voice again: ‘What must you do to activate them?’
‘Do? Nothing. They know that it is time.’
Liz couldn’t resist looking again through the tiny gap. The silent figures on the platform began to stir. Heads turned, hands and feet moved. Jerkily, hesitantly at first, the figures took a few stumbling paces. Then, seeming to gather confidence, they began to step down from the low platform. In the same eerie silence they marched one by one from the room. Soon only one figure was left. That of Scobie. The real Scobie, Liz reminded herself. Left all alone while his inhuman companions walked away.
‘Where will they go?’ she heard Hibbert ask.
There was an icy triumph in Channing’s reply. ‘To take their places. It is time for them to begin their work.’
Channing turned and followed the Replicas. Hibbert stood gazing for a moment into the empty room. Suddenly Liz realised with horror that his eyes were fixed on hers. Liz wondered if he had seen her through the gap in the curtains. Hibbert hesitated for a moment, then followed Channing from the room. The two faceless creatures followed behind him. The door closed.
Liz and the Doctor stepped out into the room. The Doctor said softly: ‘We must warn the Brigadier at once! Their plans must be far more advanced than I’d realised.’ Suddenly the door opened. They whirled round to face it. Hibbert was standing there. He was alone.
Slowly, hesitantly, he came towards them. He said in a thick, slurred voice: ‘What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. Channing… Channing will…’
The Doctor moved forward and spoke in a low urgent voice: ‘Channing will kill us if you let him know we’re here. He killed your friend Ransome.’
Hibbert’s voice was confused. ‘Ransome? I had to dismiss him. He had to be dismissed because… Channing said…’
The Doctor said in an urgent whisper: ‘Channing is controlling your mind. You must resist him. Channing is your enemy. He’s the enemy of the whole human race.’
Hibbert looked at him, in distress. ‘Channing is my partner. There’s a new policy, you see. It’s because of the new policy.’
‘Now listen to me, Hibbert,’ said the Doctor firmly. ‘You must get away from Channing. Get away from him and think. Come to UNIT. I can help you.’
Hibbert stared at him in anguish. He rubbed his hand over his eyes, shook his head as if trying to clear it. Suddenly there came the sound of echoing footsteps in the empty corridor. ‘Remember,’ hissed the Doctor, ‘they’ll kill us.’
Channing’s voice called: ‘Hibbert! Where are you, Hibbert?’ Liz and the Doctor had just time to duck behind their curtain before Channing appeared in the doorway, an Auton behind him.
From the gap in the curtain Liz saw him look round the room. ‘What are you doing, Hibbert? Is anything the matter?’
Liz held her breath as Hibbert stared back at Channing. She could almost see the struggle in his mind between the effect of the Doctor’s appeal and Hibbert’s fear of Channing.
Hibbert said: ‘No, nothing’s wrong. I was just checking.’
‘There is nothing to check. We are finished here. Come.’ Channing turned and left the room. Hibbert gave a last glance at the velvet curtain, and obediently followed him. For a moment the Auton stood poised in the doorway as if surveying the room. Then it, too, turned and left.
Liz heard the sound of their retreating footsteps. There was a sudden crash as a door somewhere was slammed. Liz and the Doctor emerged cautiously from behind the curtain.
Liz said: ‘Do you think he’ll tell Channing we were here?’
The Doctor rubbed his chin. ‘I hope not.’
‘Why didn’t he give us away?’
‘Because Hibbert is still a human being,’ said the Doctor. ‘His mind is being dominated by Channing. But the human mind is a wonderfully resilient thing. It’s almost impossible to control it completely for very long.’
Liz nodded in understanding. ‘So his real personality keeps trying to break through?’
‘That’s right. And the control seems to be weakening. It’s only completely effective when Channing’s actually with him. If he can manage to get away from Channing completely, he may be able to shake off his influence.’
The Doctor listened at the door for a moment. ‘They seem to be all gone.’
Thankfully Liz followed him to the door. She couldn’t get away from the place soon enough. She stopped in the doorway and looked back. General Scobie stood in solitary state on the now empty platform. ‘What about him?’
The Doctor shot Scobie a regretful glance. ‘Nothing we can do for him now. The poor old chap is safer where he is. Come on, Liz.’
They made for the nearest exit.
10
The Final Battle
As Liz and the Doctor approached the Brigadier’s office, they heard his voice raised in outrage and astonishment. ‘And you mean to say you simply stood there and let him walk off with it?’
They entered the room to find Munro standing unhappily to attention before the Brigadier’s desk.
‘There simply wasn’t any alternative, sir. He is a General. Besides, he had two armed MPs with him. It was that, or find myself under arrest. And they’d have taken the globe anyway. I tried to contact you as soon as it happened, sir.’
The Brigadier waved Liz and the Doctor to chairs. ‘The reason you couldn’t contact me, Munro,’ he said bitterly, ‘was because I have been spending many long hours in the ante-rooms of Whitehall, trying to get in to see a number of important Government officials. With, I might add, a complete and utter lack of success. Either they were tied up in endless conferences, or they’d left early for a long weekend.’ He turned to the Doctor and Liz. ‘And I now get back here, only to learn that, not content with cancelling the operation, Scobie’s turned up behind my back and walked off with the only piece of evidence.’
‘Oh that wasn’t Scobie, Brigadier,’ said L
iz. ‘Scobie’s still at the waxworks. That must have been his replica.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Doctor. ‘They activated that one first because they needed it to deal with UNIT. Now that the rest of them are on the loose, we’re going to have real problems.’
The Brigadier gazed at them blankly. ‘Others? What others? Will you kindly explain what you’re talking about, Doctor?’
Briefly, the Doctor and Liz told of their discoveries at the waxworks. At the end of the story, the Brigadier scarcely looked any the wiser. ‘Are you trying to tell me that some blessed waxwork walked in here and commandeered that globe?’
Munro said: ‘His manner was very strange, sir. Sort of cold and inhuman. Not really like himself at all. But I’d never have thought…’
‘Don’t you see?’ said the Doctor, ‘that’s the cunning of it. The Replicas aren’t exactly the same as human beings. Nothing is. A wife, or a child, or a close friend could detect them in a moment. But we’re not talking about personal relationships. We’re talking about people in authority. Seniors giving orders to juniors.’
Liz joined in. ‘After all, Brigadier, if you came in here all fierce and unfriendly, and started barking orders at everybody, I don’t suppose anybody would notice the slightest…’ Her voice tailed away as she realised what she was saying. Munro concealed a grin behind a sudden attack of coughing.
‘All the same, she’s quite right,’ said the Doctor. ‘A lot of the Replicas will probably cause some suspicion. But they’ll all be able to achieve a great deal of damage before they’re detected.’
‘What harm?’ said the Brigadier. ‘What are these things for?’
Patiently the Doctor explained. ‘Very soon they’ll have taken over all the important positions in the country.’
‘What about the originals, the real people?’ asked the Brigadier.
‘Some of them will have been got out of the way – like poor Scobie. The others, well…’ The Doctor shrugged.
‘A number of very important people will start appearing in two places at once, giving contradictory orders. It’ll all add to the confusion when the invasion starts.’
‘Invasion!’
‘Don’t tell me you hadn’t realised, Brigadier. Everything that’s happened so far has been just a preliminary. Before long the full-scale attack will begin.’
‘What are we going to do about it?’ said the Brigadier. ‘I’ve tried to alert the Government, but no one will listen.’
The Doctor stood up. ‘Two things, Brigadier,’ he said decisively. ‘First Miss Shaw and I must devise a weapon to use against the Autons. Once that is done, you must attack the plastics factory.’
‘How can I? I keep telling you, Scobie’s withdrawn all his men.’
The Doctor frowned. ‘You must have some men available?’
‘Myself, Munro, one or two headquarters staff…’
‘Don’t forget, there’s Miss Shaw – and me!’ The Doctor smiled encouragingly. ‘Not much of an army, is it, Brigadier? But it’ll have to do.’
The thing in the huge plastic coffin was almost complete now. It surged and pulsed, making the whole room vibrate. Channing stood watching it, with an air of quiet satisfaction. After a moment the door to the security area opened and Scobie, or rather Scobie’s Replica, joined him. In its hands the Replica carried the pulsing green globe. Channing turned. ‘They suspected nothing?’
The Replica answered in the same flat emotionless voice. ‘Nothing. The human soldiers accept my orders without question.’
‘And what of UNIT?’
‘UNIT is being watched. If they move against us, we shall know. And without their soldiers they are powerless. They will not dare to attack.’
‘Humans are not totally predictable,’ said Channing. ‘It is growing harder to maintain my control over the man Hibbert. Now he has disappeared.’
‘Hibbert is no longer necessary.’
‘No.’ There was satisfaction in Channing’s voice. ‘We need no one now.’
He took the energy unit from the hands of Scobie’s Replica, and placed it carefully in a kind of incubator next to the great plastic coffin. The pulsing of the glowing green globe rose to a peak, as Channing pulled a series of controls. Then with a final flash of light the energy unit became inert. The fragment of the Nestene consciousness which it carried had been absorbed. The final element had been added. The Nestene Mind, that vast cosmic will and intelligence that linked Channing, the Replicas, the killer Autons and the handsome display mannequins in windows all over the country, was now complete.
Channing turned to the Replica, his eyes blazing with exultation.
‘Tomorrow we will activate the Autons. This planet will soon be ours!’
*
A vast tangle of electronic equipment lay on the laboratory bench. Liz Shaw was helping the Doctor to connect and cross-connect a maze of circuitry.
‘Let me see,’ muttered the Doctor, grappling with a confusion of multi-coloured leads. ‘A red and a yellow makes…’
‘Green?’ suggested Liz hopefully. ‘Honestly, Doctor, I’d be a lot more help if I knew what this contraption of yours was supposed to do.’
The Doctor looked up. ‘Oh, didn’t I explain that? Well, you remember the device we were testing the green globe with – when we still had a globe to test?’
Liz nodded.
‘Well, this is exactly the same sort of thing. With one or two refinements.’
‘As I remember, Doctor,’ said Liz, ‘that thing fused.’
‘Indeed it did,’ admitted the Doctor. ‘But this one is a good deal more powerful. This time I’m hoping that exactly the reverse will happen. The Auton will fuse!’
Liz watched him as he went on working tirelessly. The long nimble fingers deftly sorted out wires and the cross-connections, working quickly and surely.
Liz yawned. ‘Couldn’t we take a break, Doctor? I can hardly keep my eyes open.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Must get finished, my dear.’ He looked up at Liz and she saw the lines of tension in his face, the controlled worry in his eyes. ‘I don’t think there’s very much more time, you see,’ he said gently. ‘We may need this device very soon.’ The Doctor went on working and Liz yawned again. She looked out of the lab window. There were a few pale streaks of light in the sky. She looked at her watch. It would soon be morning.
‘Just think,’ she said, ‘most of the rest of London is just starting the day!’
The city was coming to life. Office cleaners were leaving the towering blocks in chattering bands. Commissionaires and porters were reporting for duty. Shop managers and staff were letting themselves into their shops, getting ready to open the doors and face the public. The earliest of the office workers, and the keenest shoppers, were getting off their buses and emerging from Underground stations. Soon a normal, bustling London day would be in full swing. But this day, in London, and in cities all over the country, was to be like no other. This was the morning of the Auton invasion.
In the shop windows and in the department stores the mannequins stood waiting. A policeman patrolling along Oxford Street cast a casual eye at the window display in one of the big stores. A group of window dummies, dressed in bright, casual sports clothes, sat under a beach umbrella in a cheerful seaside setting. The policeman thought longingly of his own holidays. Only another two weeks… As he passed on his way the mannequins posing round the table stirred and came to life. Jerkily at first, they rose from their beach chairs and rugs. The tallest raised its hand in a pointing gesture. The hand dropped away on its hinge to reveal a gun nozzle. The rest of the dummies in the group followed suit. For all their handsome faces and bright holiday clothes, these, too, were killer Autons. Swiftly, unhesitatingly, their leader stepped straight through the store window and out onto the pavement.
The astonished policeman heard the crash of glass and spun round. His first thought was that there must have been some sort of accident. He stopped in utter amazement at the sight
of the tall figure of the Auton stalking towards him along the pavement. Other figures followed the first Auton through the gap, stepping onto the pavement. From up and down the street came the crash of glass as other Autons came to life. The policeman’s next thought was of some kind of enormous hoax. Students, he thought vaguely. They’d gone too far this time. That thought was also his last. As he ran towards the group of Autons, their leader raised its wrist-gun and blasted him to the ground.
By now other groups of Autons were appearing on the pavement. Ruthlessly they blasted down everyone they met. People ran screaming, trying to escape. In streets nearby, in streets all over London, and in the streets of every major city in Britain, it was the same story. People screamed and panicked and ran, and the Autons blasted them down.
The police received thousands upon thousands of calls. But there was little they could do. Arms were issued, but the few rifles and revolvers available were powerless against the Autons. BBC and ITV issued urgent warnings. ‘Don’t go to work. Don’t go out shopping. Stay indoors and barricade yourselves in your homes. Admit no one you do not know.’
Many people were saved by warnings like these, but many others, already out on the streets, were unable to escape. The Autons seemed to be everywhere.
The Government declared martial law and called out the Army. But most of the available troops were mysteriously absent on manoeuvres far away from the big towns. They were recalled at once, but things seemed to go wrong continually. Orders failed to arrive, or were misinterpreted. Troops were told to stay put, or sent to the wrong place. In the other services the story was the same. The Navy and the Air Force armed what men they could, but the men never seemed to get clear orders, or to arrive where they were wanted. It was as though in every position of authority traitors were working against the Government, deliberately confusing the situation.
In an office in Whitehall a young civil servant listened appalled as he heard his Minister on the telephone, deliberately giving orders that would worsen the situation. He rushed into the office to demand an explanation. The Minister stretched out his hand in a curious pointing gesture – and the hand dropped away to reveal a gun.
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